Hello farm friends!

This week’s produce boxes will have choice of two bunches greens (kale, swiss chard, collards), turnips, choice of 1 bunch green onions (scallions) or 2 red onions, and broccoli. $20, paid upon pick-up. $8 and $12 mixed bouquets also available as an add-on. And our farm’s pure, raw honey is available daily at the hardware store.

To reserve your box this week, please follow these simple steps

respond to this email with your desired pick-up date & customizations/add-ons (greens and onion selections), (Wednesday 5/18 or Saturday 5/21) **for Wednesday, please respond by 5pm on Tuesday; for Saturday, please respond by 5pm on Thursday
check for confirmation email from Pressly
pick up your box at Renfrow Hardware during business hours (Wednesday 8am-5pm; Saturday 8am-2pm)
payment accepted upon pick-up: $20 (cash, check, or credit card)
EAT & ENJOY your fresh, organically grown veggies!!

Additionally, I’ll have individual bunches of kale, collards, swiss chard, turnips, beets, radishes, green onions, and broccoli available at Renfrow Hardware Wednesday through Saturday this week. They’ll be set up inside the store as a mini-farm stand until we open the real farm stand starting on Tuesday, June 7th.

ABUNDANCE

is probably the best word to describe this week at the farm.
Here are a few reasons why:

Gaspar and Pressly harvested nearly 100 lbs of broccoli and broccolini on Monday morning, with plenty more still in the field!
Find a generous portion of broccoli florets in this week’s produce boxes, as well as on the menus at these fine dining establishments: Sante, South Charlotte Chef, Moe’s Original BBQ, Luna’s Living Kitchen, and Rooster’s Wood-Fired Kitchen (South Park).

This is the last week for radishes and “Tokyo Cross” Japanese turnips, which is one of the sweetest and my most favorite root veggies. Sweet enough to eat raw on a salad, but robust enough to roast with other root veggies or boil and mash for a mashed potato substitute, this veggie is very versatile. Bunches available all week long.

Thankfully our large patch of Detroit Red and Detroit Gold beets are just beginning to be ready, and will replace the turnips in the produce boxes starting next week! We hope these beets will help bridge the gap until the beloved summer veggies are ready in large quantities!

Speaking of summer veggies, we have several freshly tilled rows ready to be filled with more tomato seedlings on Tuesday! This field was an overgrown patch of woods until being cleared two years ago. We removed the stumps, improved drainage, grew several seasons of cover crops to build up the soil health, and now are finally ready to grow vegetables in this spot. Beans and squash will be planted in between the tomato rows in the coming weeks. The longest row beside the fence is this year’s okra! The to-do and to-plant lists are more than abundant at this time of year.

And the flower rows are churning out blooms more quickly than I can harvest!
Every day this week I will have multiple sizes of mixed bouquets as well as sunflowers available by the stem at the hardware store!

Two more sessions of our Family Food Garden Series are being held at the farm this week!
Mark your calendars for Tuesday, May 17th at 6:30pm or Wednesday, May 18th at 10am to meet Pressly and Jeff Rieves at Renfrow Hardware before walking up the farm to learn about companion planting! Email me to reserve your spot. $20 per person, or $30 if two members of same family join us. Walk-ins welcome. Learn more details here.
**In the event of rain, we will meet inside Renfrow Hardware. The class will NOT be canceled!

Companion Planting is an ancient concept that is new again. We’ll look at ways to get more fresh food from your garden, attract pollinators and beneficial insects, and repel the critters that cause us trouble.